A Study Of Mulcaster's Thoughts On The Education Of Children

England was in a period of transition from traditional society to modern society in the 16th century,under the influence of the Renaissance and the Reformation,the British educational concept and system have been changed.Richard Mulcaster(1531-1611)was an educational theorist and practitioner of the British Tudor period.As for the first son of the nobility,Mulcaster educated at Eton College,Cambridge University,Oxford University,and earned a Master of Arts degree.Soon,Mulcaster began his career as a schoolmaster in 1559,and he served as headmaster and schoolmaster mainly in Merchant Taylors' School(1561-86)and St.Paul's School(1596-1608)in London.From his personal experience,he realized the necessity of the Tudor education reform for children.With thinking about the reform on children's education,Mulcaster's thoughts on children's education were also becoming more and more mature.In the early 1580s,Mulcaster wrote and published the first edition of Positions Con.cerning the Training Up of Children,The First Part of the Elementarie and other works.These works embodied Mulcaster's thoughts on children's education.With the reprint of the Positions Concerning the Training Up of Children in 1888,Mulcaster's thoughts on children's education drew more and more attention.The study of Western scholars on his thoughts on children's education also became more sophisticated.From the early collection of information,reprint of the original book and fragmentary study,the study on Mulcaster gradually became comprehensive,but still lack of thematic research on Mulcaster's thoughts on children's education.Compared with foreign countries,our relevant research remains to be further studied.This paper attempts to carry out a more systematic and in-depth study in Mulcaster's thoughts on the education of children.This paper consists of introduction,main part and conclusion.Among them,the introduction clarifies basis of the topic selection,illustrates definitions of the keywords and core terms in this paper,combs research status at home and abroad,introduces the key original documents and expounds basic theories as well as methods in this paper.The main part of this paper includes three chapters.Chapter I discussed Richard Mulcaster's personal growth experience and historical background,and analyzed individual factors.On the one hand,affected by the background of the times,Mulcaster's thoughts on children's education reflected the parallels with contemporary educators;on the other hand,the unique growth experience of Mulcaster also made his thoughts on children's education distinctive.Chapter ? is based on the or:iginal historical data,through the analysis of the main works of Mulcaster,focusing on the Mulcaster's conception of children's education curriculum and his thought to children's educators.Chapter ? based on elaboration of the contents of Mulcaster's thoughts on children's education,analyse the creative and forward-looking thoughts of Mulcaster by comparing with the contemporary and later educators,so that we can explore the contribution of his educational thoughts.The last part generalized,summarized and ratedthe the Mulcaster's thoughts on children's education,pointed out the historical effects and analysed the reasons why Mulcaster's thoughts have not had effects on the practice of British education modernization.